


And Still It Trembles

by ERNest



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types, Les Misérables - Schönberg/Boublil
Genre: Gen, Javert's Suicide, Religious Conflict, Self-Doubt, Suicide, The Law Is Not Mocked
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-22
Updated: 2019-09-22
Packaged: 2020-10-14 11:24:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 569
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20599976
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ERNest/pseuds/ERNest
Summary: Javert is derailed, and a heart of wood cannot be softened.Inspired by Josh Davis' performance in the 2017 National Tour





	And Still It Trembles

Inspector Javert lets his enemy _go_, damn it all. He watches that villain, Jean Valjean, slowly ascend the steep bank of the river, just as he has raised that man to his own level, _above_ it. He feels a sob careening around his chest, but that at least, he will not release. Something stretches tight, a muscle he’s never exercised, or a noose, or something still more strange and fearsome. If he lets go of either end, then everything he’s worked so hard to gain will unravel into nothingness and be lost.

When the tension finally does snap, he is almost too far gone to notice, which would no doubt repulse him more than anything if he were in his right mind. Javert is unhinged and getting more so as thoughts fly apart that were meant to be locked tight. He cannot stay in one place, so he whirls from street to bridge, one paving stone to another, and back the way he came. He hardly knows where to look, even, because for the first time in his life he is trying to justify his actions, _any_ action, to Someone Else. He’s never done this before, not even in the silence of his thoughts; because he has always been irreproachable, justification was for other people.

And to _whom_ does he appeal now?

To God? When a figure that has always been a function of the Law is transfigured to something separate and above it, can he possibly have the right to beg absolution? All he wants is to tender his resignation, as he cannot tender his heart. But if he does not seek justification there, who is left to bargain with? Not Valjean, surely! He cannot want approval from the man he fears he is becoming; that would be grotesque.

Why, then, does he keep returning to the same places, overlooking the same roiling waters? And _why_ can he not seem to stop asking questions, when there has been no room for doubt in his mind? There has been no room for fear either, and even now that word is too small for what is going on in his brain. Out of the chaos of a convict’s mercy rises a great calm, and out of the calm rises an ex-cop, one foot at a time onto the balustrade. He does not know what he is doing, but he is sure of himself — this assurance has never been a comfort until now, because it has simply been his core state. But something rumbles — beneath his skin or beneath his feet, he cannot tell — and when it echoes he makes the mistake of looking down.

The void swirls below him, not alive enough to be hungry, and his arms micro-correct for balance. There is no way he can step back off this precipice on which he has planted himself, for discipline dies hard, but bravery is a thing he has never had to practice, so here he stays, refusing to fall or fail. It is an impossible situation.

Even the stars go dark after an endless second and it is this realization which pushes him from doubt to despair. He lets the bridge fall away from him, the final reference point in a world that was never as ordered as he supposed (or maybe he only hoped)

At this point of the Seine even the strongest of swimmers would be lost.


End file.
